Updated 29th December 2018 to include additional references and 14th February 2020 to include a safety alert issued to NHS audiology clinics

A recent study looked at 20 years worth of data from emergency departments in the USA about children who had attended following a battery related incident. Whilst incidents were rare at 4.6 hospital visits per 100,000 children in the population that amounted to an average 3289 visits annually. The study looked at four scenarios – swallowing batteries (which accounted for 76.6% of visits), and putting them in the mouth (7.5%), the ear canal (5.7%) and the nose (10.2%). And it was most likely to happen in the under 5’s (mean age 3.9 years). More than 8 out of 10 visits were related to button batteries which are widely used in hearing aids, cochlear implants and other electronic devices. It’s also worth considering that the magnets used in some cochlear implant coils are a similar size and shape to button batteries and could also be a potential hazard. In December 2019 a National Patient Safety Alert was released to all NHS audiology clinics about battery safety in children’s hearing aids. The safety alert states that all hearing aids fitted to babies and children under five years of age must have secure battery compartments. And where hearing aids are issued to older children and adults, the audiology clinic is required to consider the need for a secure battery compartment for anyone living with young children and babies, or with a person with additional risk factors, such as those with a significant learning disability, dementia or other cognitive or sensory impairment. This safety alert follows an investigation by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch into the case of a three year old child who had an unknown and undetected ingestion of a button battery and sadly died. The child was not deaf and the battery in question had come from another household device.

This means that audiologists and parents of young deaf children need to be aware of the risks and ensure children’s equipment is used safely:

• Make sure young children have childproof battery locks fitted to their hearing aids so that they can’t remove the battery themselves.
• Try not to let young children see batteries being changed. It is safer if they do not know that the battery compartment opens.
• Ensure both the used and new batteries are stored safely and out of sight of young children.
• Keep your used batteries in the original packaging so that you can be sure that no old batteries have gone missing and to keep the batteries safe.
• Remember that even if you trust your own child not to fiddle with their batteries there may be other children in their school or nursery who don’t understand that they shouldn’t play with them.